The summer internship is a curriculum-based, immersion program for adult Christians. Over the course of ten weeks, we’ll explore the possibilities of using food and agriculture to reconcile with some of our community’s deepest divisions. Our work ranges from organic vegetable production on a garden and farm scale to community engagement through potlucks, workdays, and distribution. Our guided reflections touch issues such as race, class, sexuality, vocation, and technology from a Christian agrarian perspective. In 2018, the summer internship will run for 10 weeks, from May 20 – July 28.
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HOW TO APPLY:

APPLICATION DEADLINE: Admission is rolling through March 15.ADMISSIONS DEADLINE: We will make decisions within two weeks of receiving your application.

To apply, download and complete all the forms below; mail them to the following address, or email them to anathothgarden@gmail.com:

(The above forms have been uploaded as Google documents, therefore, the formatting is wonky. Please download them as a Word document to correct the formatting. Or, email us and we’ll send
you a copy!)

We will review your application as soon as it is complete, so the sooner you submit it the sooner we can let you know if you have been accepted into the program. We strongly encourage you, therefore, to send in your application well before the application deadline if possible.

This year we are accepting four adult summer interns. The descriptions of the intern positions are outlined below. When filling out the application, please read each description and rank them according to your preference. We will try our best to give accepted applicants their first or second choice, but the admission is rolling, so earlier application allows for a better chance at your preferred spot.

Cook: Do you have an interest in turning fresh, raw veggies into delicious meals? The cook is responsible for planning all crew meals and coordinating with our Open Hands Teen Interns to cook them at the garden during the week. The Cook Intern is also granted creative license to explore preservation techniques or other culinary ideas such as pickles, kraut, or sun-dried tomatoes that will educate interns and community members about how to turn plants into food!

Field: During the peak of our season, fieldwork is crucial: irrigation has to be set up (and in some cases, repaired), tomatoes have to be trellised, and oh yeah, we have to keep planting to ensure that there will be enough to harvest throughout the season. The Field intern will learn the intricacies of these wide-ranging tasks, working closely with our HarvestShare Program Coordinator, Farm Managers, Season-Long Apprentices, and Open Hands Teen Interns.

Harvest/Prep: The intern dedicated to harvest/prep has an important role on the crew. They will learn the ins and outs of harvesting veggies from the field and ensuring that they are as fresh and kitchen-ready as possible for the 200 HarvestShare households who will receive a share of them each week. The Harvest/Prep Intern will work closely with our HarvestShare Program Coordinator, our Season-Long Apprentices, and our Open Hands Teen Interns.

Outreach/ Archivist: In the midst of harvesting, field work, education, and all that occurs in-between, sometimes we struggle to archive all of the good work in the form of photographs, video, or in-person interviews at our community workdays. The Outreach/Archivist Intern has an important responsibility to capture these memories for us to share with the community. They will work closely with our Communication Liaison, our Season-Long Apprentices, and other interns.

Our 2017 adult interns and apprentices!

Our 2016 intern family!

Interns get to learn by practicing new skills together.

The community that forms in and around the garden is probably the most important aspect of a summer internship at Anathoth.

That's a whole lot of onions you got there, Dakotah!

Cooking and eating together is a big part of the summer experience.

Working on the farm exposes interns to workings of a market garden on a commercial scale.

Our work in the farm and garden centers on running a 200-member CSA program called HarvestShare.

Summer interns get to work with the teenage interns in our Open Hands program during morning work hours.

Lots of blueberries!

Zoe is weeding with style in 2014.

Summer interns learn how to use different types of equipment such as a broadfork (as pictured).

Lasting friendships.

After morning work hours interns have time during the heat of the afternoon to read and reflect...and maybe eat some blueberries, too.

WHY APPLY?

We have nearly thirteen years of experience as a rural, agrarian-centered, community development ministry (read about our story). We are positioned in the hub of the South’s “local, sustainable food and agriculture movement” and in proximity to Duke Divinity School. This context provides interns with the unique opportunity to learn the fundamentals of sustainble (or what we like to call regenerative) agriculture as well as its place within the framework of Christian reconciliation, theology, and community development–not only in the farm, garden, and surrounding community, but also from leading practitioners and scholars!

TESTIMONIALS:

Over the past eight years we have equipped more than 25 young adults through the summer internship program. Many of them are currently working in the realm of food-and-faith. Here’s what some of them have to say about their experience.

“My (experience) working at Anathoth in Cedar Grove taught me the refining worth of close community, the spiritual and physical value of hard work, and the importance of reconciliation in our hearts, our neighborhoods, and our land. In the time spent farming, serving, eating, and reading, I learned lessons I know I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”

Cari Phillips, Sustainability Coordinator, Union University

“Coming to Anathoth, I was excited to live in an intentional Christian community, learn about regenerative agriculture, and make friends along the way – but never did I expect that I would leave with the skills to do more than just tend to a garden! It was through my work at Anathoth and time in Cedar Grove that I saw firsthand how a community can truly work to engage one another to care for the land that sustains their lives – – a form of fellowship really; encouraging and loving one another every moment in the garden.”

“I encourage anyone who is in pursuit of learning how to serve a community through theological and agricultural principles to participate in Anathoth Community Garden’s summer apprenticeship program. The beautiful lessons learned during these three months will be cherished deeply by you, and the community you will serve.”

“Since we dug the first beds and planted our first crop (garlic) in the fall of 2005, Anathoth has been a place committed to God’s restoration and healing of all things. That this work takes place in a garden is no accident, for we come from a garden (Genesis 1-2) and it’s to a garden that we are headed (Revelation 21). Learning how to care for a garden, and how to care for others in that garden, is no easy task. It is not glamorous work. It is work that can be begun, but never finished. But “tilling and keeping” the garden is good work, and it is a vocation to which all of us are in some way called. Should you come to Anathoth to take up this work yourself, you will be embarking on a journey far more important than you could have imagined. It certainly was for me. I ended up staying four years.”

Fred BahnsonDirector, Food, Faith, and Religious Leadership Initiative, Wake Forest University School of Divinity
Author, “Soil and Sacrament: A Memoir of Food and Faith”
Former Director of Anathoth“In my work as a theologian and an agrarian, Anathoth Community Garden has served as a focal place where many of the great themes of cultural renewal, community healing, and land regeneration come together. Digging beds, weeding, working in community and with complete strangers, sharing food–all this and more become an essential education on the way to Shalom. Our church and our world needs Anathoth if we are going to live into God’s reconciling ways with the world. It needs apprentices who will take what they learn in Cedar Grove and then create many more gardens of work and delight and hope across this nation and beyond.”
Dr. Norman Wirzba, Ph.D
Research Professor of Theology, Ecology, and Rural Life, Duke University Divinity School
Author, “Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating”

“For the past 17 years I’ve run Christian undergraduate environmental studies programs in Belize and New Zealand, and for the first time I’m excited to endorse another program—the Anathoth Community Garden Summer Internship. If you’re serious about learning how to grow food, live in community, serve your neighbors, and grow in faith this experience will meet your expectations and then some!”

Our goal is to equip each intern with the experience and resources they need to grow spiritually and learn how to use food and agriculture to better minister with the communities they are a part of.

-Introduction to sustainable agriculture:

Participate in running a 200-member, sliding-scale Community Supported Agriculture program called HarvestShare

Field-trip to area farms to converse with expert gardeners and farmers

Participate in educational workshops hosted by the garden

Access a library of resources related to agrarian theology and sustainable agriculture

-Study the ways in which food and agriculture bear on issues ranging from ecology, economics, race, and theology in the Church and world

Engage in rigorous and relevant readings each week

Converse with leading scholars and practitioners in the field of food-and-faith

Reflect theologically in a group setting once a week

-Live in intentional community in the Cedar Grove community

Live communally with other interns with a host family

Participate in the worship life of a local church

Engage in common prayer and devotion each morning before work

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________WHAT DO WE EXPECT?

-Hard-working, mature, physically-capable, self-initiating, enthusiastic individuals who are planning on using the skills and experience gained from this program to further their goals for doing good work in their own community
-Help running a 200-member CSA program-Full-participation in all of the above opportunities
-40+ hours/ week (Tuesday-Saturday) commitment for ten weeks, May 20 – July 28______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

COMPENSATION:

– Rigorous, curriculum-based educational experience that will prepare you with a solid foundation for working in the realm of food-and-faith
– Housing and utilities with a host family in the community
– An ample supply of fresh produce
– $100/month living stipend for group of interns for additional groceries and living expenses

Our Mission

Healing divisions between neighbors and the land by growing food together in Cedar Grove, NC.